In this seminar, University of Cambridge environmental justice researcher, Joycelyn Longdon will share her lyrical book Natural Connection. Natural Connection celebrates the histories and extraordinary acts of Indigenous and marginalised communities – from the US to the UK, Brazil to Iran, Ghana to Ethiopia – who have paved the way for today’s environmental movement and presents 6 key pillars, RAGE, IMAGINATION, INNOVATION, THEORY, HEALING, CARE to root us in our intrinsic connection with the natural world, celebrating the power of community.

Joycelyn Longdon is an award-winning environmental justice researcher and educator. Her PhD research at the University of Cambridge centres on the design of justice-led conservation technologies for monitoring biodiversity with local forest communities in Ghana.

Her work makes more accessible topics of climate justice, climate colonialism, activism, creativity and systems change across a variety of forums on and offline and for platforms including Meta, The United Nations Geneva Dialogues, Channel 4, Cheltenham Science Festival, Oxford University, The National Lottery, The Design Council and The Wellcome Collection.

Joycelyn was 2022’s winner of the Emerging Designer London Design Medal, was featured in British Vogue’s December 2023 ‘Forces for Change’ Issue and is a and is a TEDx Alumni. Most recently, she has been listed as one of Pique Action and Harvard Chan C-CHANGE’s 2024 Climate Creators to Watch and as one of Country and Town House’s Future Icons Power People 2024.

The Nature-based Solutions Initiative, Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, and Biodiversity Network are interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.

The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative, Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery/Biodiversity Network, or its researchers.